Significations Graduate Student Conference

Call For Submissions
31st Annual Significations Graduate Student Conference
California State University, Los Angeles
Department of English

Conference Date: April 24, 2026
Submission Deadline: January 30, 2026

IN/ACTIVITY

Starting from a sense of our own activity as literary and cultural scholars, the organizers of Significations invite graduate students to share their work on the theme of In/Activity. We welcome submissions that interpret, examine, and analyze the theme broadly. Possible topics of discussion can include, but are not limited to, the following:

What the activity of literary and cultural studies can mean and what it can look like;
New readings of texts and/or approaches to literary and cultural studies;
The formal and aesthetic elements through which in/activity gets represented;
Political stasis and/or revolutionary action;
Matters of suspension, delay, boredom, productivity, or freneticism;
Inactivity and refusal as productive and destructive enterprises;
Ecological inactivity, collapse, and regeneration;
Artificial Intelligence and its effects on human activity;
Politics of rest, labor, leisure, and production;
The implications of participation, observation, performance, and performativity;
Assimilation, adaptability, and adoption;
Issues of economic growth, scarcity, and consumption;

We welcome submissions from fields including Creative Writing; Critical Theory; Cultural Studies; Ethnic or Area Studies; Film and Theatre Studies; History; Linguistics; Philosophy; Religious Studies; Sociology; Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies; and other fields rooted in humanities-based inquiry.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES:

Presentations will be in panel format with participants delivering 10-minute talks followed by Q&A.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact the Faculty Advisors Dr. Maria Karafilis
(mkarafi@calstatela.edu) and Dr. Sarah Minslow (sminslo@calstatela.edu).

Significations

The English Department and the English Graduate Student Association at California State University, Los Angeles will host the 29th annual graduate studies conference, Significations, on Friday, April 13, 2024 in the University-Student Union at California State University. This year’s theme is “Evil.” We invite applicants to visit the realm of evil and explore how this concept plays a role in literary, aesthetic, and cultural history. We welcome papers in any of the following fields: literature and theory, film, art history, cultural studies, cultural and political history, education, technology and in whatever other interdisciplinary fields you may be studying that are relevant to the conference topic.

Conference Date: April 13, 2024

Submission Deadline: February 14, 2024

Keynote Speaker: Dr. Ambereen Dadabhoy (Harvey Mudd College)

The conference will take the form of round table discussions with participants speaking for five minutes on their research topics, followed by audience Q&A and discussion. Please submit an abstract of 250-350 words. Please send electronic submissions to significations.csula@gmail.com with "Significations 2024 Submission" as the subject heading of the email. All submissions must be in Microsoft Word (.docx) format. In a separate attachment, please include a cover sheet with your paper title and the following information: name, street address, email address, phone number, and institutional affiliation. Do not put any identifying information on the abstract. One submission per student.

All submissions will receive feedback from the reviewers. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact the Faculty Advisor Dr. Michael Calabrese at mcalabr@calstatela.edu and Dr. Juan Lamata at jlamata2@calstatela.edu.

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About Significations

Significations examines the significations of language, image, and literary representations of meaning and experience. We invite papers from all periods and genres of literary, linguistic, and visual culture. In addition, we welcome investigations of cultural studies, critical theory, film, gender studies, philosophy, the social sciences, and visual and performing arts.